Album Review: LOWLIVES - 'FREAKING OUT'
Bringing together loud sounds, shredding riffs, angsty emotion and fiery outrage, LOWLIVES are taking things back to their humble beginnings for their debut full-length record FREAKING OUT.
Following on from the success of singles and EPs, such as 2021’s I Don’t Like You and taking a massive step forward from 2018’s debut Burn Forever, it was time for this fantastic four-piece to get their debut out in the open. From the start of their careers, and their joint love of music, they have learnt the upsides and downfalls of the feelings it can bring on and bring out. Discovering the bad after the good as he grew up, vocalist Lee Downer is feeling everything in the roughest, most painful yet most therapeutic way possible. On tracks such as ‘LIAR’ and ‘LOSER’ and title track ‘FREAKING OUT’, it shows that there is more than just a story being told. It’s an autobiography, put to the heavy gloom of LOWLIVES’ brand of rock; a sound that makes it both melodic enough to enjoy, paired with lyrics that make each tune a tale that everyone in the world can relate to.
‘LOSER’ is one of the catchiest tracks, thanks to Downer’s strong heartfelt vocals and the power coming from guitarist Jaxson Moore to add to the raw and unedited expression of yearning. A track dedicated to wanting that love, adoration and attention from the object of one’s affection: “I wish you were mine” echo throughout the track, and there is nothing more complex and no metaphors necessary to convey the true intense tone of it all. It’s wanting to be loved, wanting to be needed, and wanting to be that needed to someone in the same way they may need them.
It’s confirmed within FREAKING OUT that LOWLIVES have found the sound and style that is them, purely and inarguably them. Nearing the end of the record with tracks such as ‘DAMIEN’, it also solidifies that this is an album that is not for ones in the smooth-sailing easy-going lives. The ones who have it all together, who have everyone they need there for them, who have everything working for them just how they live it. Those lives are so few and far between, and there always needs to be a voice for the quiet majority. As demonstrated over the last six years, with single after single of the good, the bad, and the ugly in everyday life, LOWLIVES know it and they can feel it along with their listeners and fan following.
Concluding with ‘VERTIGO’, a track that takes a softer approach compared to its preceding list of the record. With just a voice, an acoustic guitar, and an air of anxiety and hurt, this was the band’s last chance on the record to show their bite can be just as harsh as their bark. Stripping back the heavy percussion, and effects, and throwing in some string accompaniment, they confirm right at those last moments that they don’t shout and scream and cry for the sake of it. For the sake of being dramatic, or scoring emotional points with their listeners. But because they know it, they feel it, and they can finally understand it. Understand it on a level only they can, and with the winning team of Downer and drummer Luke Johnson being the catalyst for the LOWLIVES everyone sees today, it is the best and most beautiful ending for a record they could ever come up with.
If this is just the start, and it’s already becoming a record to send chills in the air and pluck at the heartstrings of every rocker out there, there is a long and wonderful journey ahead for LOWLIVES.
Words by Jo Cosgrove
